Friday, November 24, 2006

I'm not sure why a title in ebonics is that much funnier in ,what I call perhaps unpolitically correctly, REAL english, but there it is (why is ebonics funny to me, who lives in a part of the world where only the truly insecure highschooler, or delightfully ironic hiptser, uses it?). Waking up at Fo Fitty in the mornning is a delight. Mainly because it feels like I'm using 'free time'. Get to work at six, leave at 2:30, 3ish. Feels like getting off work early it does. (Waking up this early also brings back those halycon days of yore when I'd wake up real super duper early to go skiing. Not a lot mind you. Never the sportsman. But enough so that everytime I wake at a demon infested, ungodly hour, like 4:50am, I remember skiing. ) Never mind that I have ot take naps as soon as I come home. I got off work at 2:30! I'm beating the system, or, more appropriately, The Man.

It's nice having the flexibility to come in early, or a bit later. There is a downside to choosing the former route though. You may know him as Pepe Le Peu, or perhaps the more germaine name of Mephitis mephitis, we in the West End know him only as That Arrogant Son Of A... Badger Like Creature. If ever there was an animal (besides human, of course) that radiated arrogance, it'd be the skunk. Espeically during the early hours, when that little guy is just waddling all over the Westend. Hanging out. Looking for food. Hoping to give some nutri-grain eating, flax-seed ingesting, wheat grass drinking early morning jogger a scare.

Many a time I've been walking to my busstop, head down, musing over something (oh alright, more or less just sleepwalking while properly attired) when a slight motion will catch my eye. And there he is, on some lawn, tail up, eyeing me with a malevolent amusement. Sometimes, he's just sort of bored, he just raises his tail halfway -- a token threat -- as I scurry obsequious and frightened, to the faaar side of the street. It does tend to take the pleasure out of the early morning. Or, early mo'nin', as it were.

== Origins ==Of Gaelic and Micronesian origin, the term for a flightless albino bird standing 3 meters tall which killed its prey with a prehensile tail. Specifically, it was in reference to both the bird, as well as the bird's method of killing (to pete, or peteing).Over time, it has also taken on the following definitions, depending on the context, tone, and the speaker's preference to the colour blue:

flailing during a Siberian Autumnal Feast thinking that one was under the power of the hallucinogenic and sacred mushroom Halafrestum. When in fact the one has only eaten a dried up and slightly trodden upon oyster.

singing out of tune in jest.

walking.

a mulit-tiered, fully automated gun turret defense system that was officially designed and implemented by the Nazis late in WWII. It fell out of favour when "fully automated", meant it shot and killed everything in sight until it ran out of bullets.

the definitive clicking sound made by Master Lock combination locks serial numbers 840912840-8JNS83-5667 through to 840912840-8JNS83-5668.

== Current Usage ==It has since fallen out of favour internationally, and is currently in use, and then, only sporadically, on the Pacific Coast of North America. Formally it's meaning is "to lose one's appendage to a rabid, townhouse/condo defending dog of questionable temperment". Informally it's slang to denote an undefined action taken upon an unsuspecting, if irrestibly alluring, animal.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

if your group shares anything in common with a particular Group that has aliens, volcanoes, dc-70s without propellers, and spirits that must be cleared from the soul.

you have a section in your seminar that specifies "This is why we are not a cult"

if the volunteer to paid employee ratio is greater than 2:1

if recruiting people is the most important goal at the end of your seminar(s)

if on googling the group, in addition to your corporation's site, you get hits on cult debunkers, Skeptic's Dictionary and Apologetics Index.

if your wikipedia page has a "The neutrality of this article is disputed." warning.

if your founder is a disgruntled higher up from aforementioned Group that features aliens, volcanoes, etc.

if your group has the nasty habit of drawing many national investigative reporting specials on your cult-like behaviour, and/or governments denounce you as a cult.

if you actually pay cult experts to say you are not a cult

if while your informing people about your group you have to say "it's not a cult"

if you have people who have no other training than the course itself, doing very deep and possibly damaging psychological treatment (i.e. "Tell me about the worse and most emotionally scarring thing that's happened to you and that is haunting your life righ tnow", also see, the Group That Features Aliens Etc).

if your group is basically selling the Coles Notes to grade 11 high school 'World Religions and Philosophy : a Primer'.

if you are sworn to secrecy abot these Coles notes, formally known to the group as 'technology'.

if you have to sign a waiver for psychological and physical damage before the seminar.

if bringing out fear and vulnerability is done in your 'seminar'

if you ever say "no one would ever have to do drugs if they knew about this!"

if you find yourself using very specialized language to define your life.

if at any time, your seminar features carefully staged and executed public humiliation.

if the leader of the seminar speaks in such a way that would get him slapped, slugged, or worse in public.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

It has been my ambition to never go to an office soiree, dinner, coffee house, charade tournament or anything that falls into the purvey of the Workplace Forced Socialization Event. Mostly because I have hermetic tendencies. And also because my work never involves me saying anything to anyone. In my early years, I could go days without ever saying an actual word to anyone. It was bliss. It just seemed to me that with work that is primarily analysis and thinking and stuff, to go to some function every seasonal period to chat it up, as it were, with coworkers I don't even know, is just farcical.

But, over my many years at employment, and perhaps, in some way, due to my affinity for the sitcom "The Office", I've started attending. My work pals tell me it's all about the free meal. I don't call sitting through what seems like literally geologic eons of speeches from the higher ups we never ever interact with 'free'. The funny thing about these meals is that it kinda reveals the double life of the office. On one hand you have the higher ups, the sort of folks who go to seminars on "Vision", or "White Papers on Leadership". On the other hand, you have the folks who do the nitty gritty work. I think for the most part these two groups never meet.

Unfortunately, the higher ups -- who think these great big expansive Feyneman-esque thoughts on groups and departments and potential in the human spirit -- often feel a need to share these kernels of truth; as well as there overarching mission, which sadly includes us. For those on the ground, we are primarily concerned with the work. Well, work, and not being included in the overarching vision.

Perhaps I shouldn't include everyone in that. Perhaps there are other paper-pushers who care. Care deeply on how they can have transformative spirit work whilst doing their duties. That have daily mantras on how their contributions can further the mission statement and bring us all to some envisioned ideal. Some envisioned ideal that features fields of untapped human potential and probably a very progressive sitar soundtrack in the background. I am not those people. And I'm fairly certain the (few) people I talk to on a daily basis are not one of those people. (Maybe this is just a lie I tell myself. I'm sure one of these day's I'll stand, horrified, looking at the computer of a coworker I thought previously impervious to New Age Overarching Thought, with a bright flashing screensaver iteration through the Five Steps to Oneness and Customer Repeat Business. Or something.)

In anycase, the speeches. The endless speeches from folks who are frankly, hardwired for this sort of thing. They line up. Each one continuing their spiel with the "and just one more thing" line that many of us have swallowed hook line and sink 'er. It really is this endless parade of comments and addendums, looking back on the years and looking forward to the future. It's interminable. Like this post. Hence I'll just end it here and let you have your 'dinner' that was no doubt made a la assembly line style in what could only be very generously be called a 'kitchen'.

Well, back in the nether reaches of time, back when yesteryear was naught but yesterday, back when men were men, women were women, and anyone else were locked good and tight in their respective closets, Canadaland had something called ThoenkaGavin. Of Dutch and Denmarkian origin it refers to the celebration following a heroic defeat of any number of small, marauding, and disturbingly fast rodents known as the Hanckel Smithin (Hanckelious Smithinourien).

Now legend has it that the Federali Guv'mnt of yesteryear were facing a very stiff uprising of sorts from the western and praire Constitutionalities (now known as Provinces) with regards to payments owed for constructing the first Dirigible Waypointing Flare System. As back in those days, Canadaland was determined to become the foremost dirigible passage this side of India. Although the only spices we had at the time were Salt and Bacon, our nation was of the most optimistic variety, never guessing that a fashion craze for hats from large, dam building rodents would power its economy for years. Regardless, there was an uprising astirring, and with all uprisings, this one had to be appeased, put down, or possibly ridden to surprising Cinderella like unseating of the current party. Lucky for the ruling party at the time, there was only one Party (the Lumberjack party, formed mainly on the basis of having less taxes on "Beeres and Spirits That Anger the Blood").

So back to the rebellion. As Canadians were mainly fur trappers and Dirigible Flare Makers, they had built up an astounding tolerance to alcohol. This made the usual gambit of simply waylaying the monthly allotment of rye to rebellious areas cost prohibitive. It was with great relief then, that the discovery of Turkey and its charming Hookas were greeted. Unfortunately, no amount of hooka smoking would do any good, as it would be a good 3 years yet until BC Bud reached its potency and availability it has today. The almost concurrent discovery of turkey, the bird, as in eating, lead to its discovery nearly being lost. As many thought it was only a problem in punctuation, and inferred incorrectly that the same discovery was being repeated twice in the papers. But after several hamlets rich in turkey populations were found snoozing, even to the point of missing their weekly beere runs, the true ability of Turkey as a Sleeping Agent was both discovered and utilized to its full potential.

Hence the Guv'ment decreed an arbitrary day in October to be ThoenkaGavin Day. A day of eating and sleeping and hopefully not mentioning broadway musicals to Uncle Ted who was having trouble as it was landing a wife.

Years later, the Americans, on their 27th failed invasion of Canada (mostly failing since there is no actual visual difference between Really Cold America and Warm If You Like That Sort Of Thing Canada), falsely interpreted our proud, government imposed rebellion quelling holiday of ThoenkaGavin as being related* to their turkey murdering day, Thanks Giving. Even though we don't have a Plymouth Rock. Or pilgrims. Or have never had any firearms that would come close to rivalling the blunderbuss. Or that our ThoenkaGavin date was in any way near the American Thanksgiving.

* The main differences in food preparation between the Canadian ThoenkaGavin and the American Thanksgiving is bacon. And beer. In so many ways and varieties it'd literally spin your head a la Beetlejuice (isn't it weird the same actor that gave us Batman gave us some Zombie Raising Hell Born Demon?)

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

I'm getting ready to send out my submission packet. Send my baby out into the big wide world to be rejectamacated. A bit light at first, just two: one to a publisher and one to an agent. I'm planning on having this baby go through about 75 or so rejections before I shelve it.

I've read the same 50 or so pages like five times already. After a while, all the jokes kinda fall flat. I don't even know what the hell I"m reading and why I'd be bothering anyone with it. Yeah, I know, angst angst, slit slit. It's kinda like video games. After a while, the neat little graphicy explosions and stuff just fade away, and all you really experience is the gameplay. I call it my Tetris theory. And if any of that made sense, congrats, you are a nerd.

After reading the same stuff over and over again, you actually sort of memorize it, and your brain just glosses over it. I think that's natures way of telling me to just send it off already. Why nature would butt her nosy little ass into my business of horrid novel writing, I have no idea. Apparently the whole Intelligent Design dunderheads aren't keeping her busy enough. I'm not sure why some neo-con political group in the US would affect an anthropomorphic metaphor for the biosphere and all the macro and micro interactions that make up what we call the Living World (not to be confused with the Unliving World, which makes for excellent fodder for zombie flicks, zombie games, and justifications of the Goth Lifestyle(tm)).

They say a writer is never done editing a book, he just abandons it. And that's what I'm doing. I can only read my own tired writing so many times. I'm itching to get a new novel started. It's also getting pretty depressing to find myself doing tons of fricking work every single time I edit. It's supposed to be LESS editing each pass. I guess I can take comfort in the idea that few of my writer heroes ever got their FIRST novel published, it was usually their second or third.

Well, the two submissions are all addressed and stuff, and ready to go. Fire in the hole, as it were.

I realize that some of have no idea what my novel is about. That's probably because I haven't told you combined with the unfortunate fact that you most likely don't have ESP. My main reasons for not talking about it was because it was mind-bogglingly silly. It still is. The more tangential reason was because I wanted to finish it first. Well, it's done (sorta).

So, without further adieu, here is my pitch:

What is the only thing that a menacingly artistic panda, a suicidally brave boy hunter, and an unconventionally gadgeteering gnome have in common? The Faire, an annual festival in the Land of Ga for just about everything.

"Dance Panda, Dance" is a mildy humourous novel written with obsequious adulation to Terry Pratchett, Michael Ende, and Douglas Adams. Set in the fantastic and wonderously absurd Land of Ga, where Cheese Pirates and Dagger Dwarves roam. It is the story of Steve, a panda, Patrick, a gnome, and Enkidu the hunter, who want, more than anything, to get to The Faire.

Edward, a Fourth Level Scroll Clerk, might put a tiny hiccup in their plans. As it's at The Faire where he hopes to start his very own violent and bloody revolution. Before The Faire is done, the pair will unwittingly be a pawn in his diabolical plan, have to thwart the plans, survive any fallout, and prove themselves to the world.

This is a story about how in losing your way, you can find true friendship, find yourself, and if you happen to help a maniacal paper pusher with visions of totalitarian rule, find the strength in yourself to stop him.

Will Edward spark the revolution his blind and ruthless ambition thirst for? Will the three travellers make it through the sometimes treacherous, other times absurd, and always wonderous Land of Ga and get to The Faire? And if they do, how will they thwart Edward's plans, save The Faire, and save themselves?